We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheWhen I say to the Moment flying; 'Linger a while -- thou art so fair!' Then bind me in thy bonds undying, And my final ruin I will bear!
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThe brilliant passes, like the dew at morn; The true endures, for ages yet unborn.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheTo me the external existence of my soul is proved from my idea of activity. If I work incessantly until my death, nature will give me another form of existence when the present can no longer sustain my spirit.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheWhatever is the lot of humankind I want to taste within my deepest self. I want to seize the highest and the lowest, to load its woe and bliss upon my breast, and thus expand my single self titanically and in the end go down with all the rest.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheLet no one be like another, yet everyone like the highest. How is this done? Be each one perfect in himself.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheBeauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheNo matter what one says, you can recognize only those matters that are equal to you. Only rulers who possess extraordinary abilities will recognize and esteem properly extraordinary abilities in their subjects and servants.
Johann Wolfgang von GoethePeople will allow their faults to be shown them; they will let themselves be punished for them; they will patiently endure many things because of them; they only become impatient when they have to lay them aside.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheEvery individual who is not creative has a negative, narrow, exclusive taste and succeeds in depriving creative being of its energy and life.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThe light is there, and colors surround us. However, if there were no light nor colors in our own eye, we wouldn't perceive such things outside of us.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThe day is of infinite length for him who knows how to appreciate and use it.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheAll ages have said and repeated that one should strive to know one's self. This is a strange demand which no one up to now has measured up to and, strictly considered, no one should. With all their study and effort, people are directed to what is outside, to the world about them, and they are kept busy coming to know this and to master it to the extent that their purposes require. . . . How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to. And what is your duty? Whatever the day calls for.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheWe love a girl for very different qualities than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her understanding.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheLet's plunge ourselves into the roar of time, the whirl of accident; may pain and pleasure, success and failure, shift as they will -- it's only action that can make a man.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheAs soon as you are in a social setting, you better take away the key to the lock of your heart and pocket it; those who leave thekey in the lock are fools.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheI will listen to anyone's convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheSince I have heard often enough that everyone in the end has his own religion, nothing seemed more natural to me than to fashion my own.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheEverything is both simpler than we can imagine and more entangled than we can conceive.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheTo quit smoking, you must first want to quit, but then you must also do the quitting
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheTo live within limits. To want one thing. Or a few things very much and love them dearly. Cling to them, survey them from every angle. Become one with them - that is what makes the poet, the artist, the human being.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheI will say with Lorenzo de Medici that those who do not hope for another life are always dead to this one.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheHe who is wise puts aside all claims which may dissipate his attention, and confining himself to one branch excels in that.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheEverything in science depends on what one calls an aperรงu, on becoming aware of what is at the bottom of the phenomena. Such becoming aware is infinitely fertile.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheI always seek the good that is in people and leave the bad to Him who made mankind and knows how to round off the corners.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheWe accept every person in the world as that for which he gives himself out, only he must give himself out for something. We can put up with the unpleasant more easily than we can endure the insignificant.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheNeither a work of nature nor one of art we get to know when they have been finished; we must surprise them in the process of beingcreated so as to understand them to some degree.
Johann Wolfgang von GoethePeople of uncommon abilities generally fall into eccentricities when their sphere of life is not adequate to their abilities.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheIf I work incessantly to the last, nature owes me another form of existence when the present one collapses.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe